The Child Welfare

 

Introduction

             Child welfare is a field that provides services to nurture the well-being of the children by ensuring permanency, safety and nourishing families to enable them care for their children successfully. The child welfare has the powers to breakdown the families and to protect them at the same time. This brings into sense the fact that the family is both the subject of material privacy and sentimental and also the subject of public policy. Child welfare was a part of social work, a field that specialized in implementation of skills and values of social work. However, child welfare started to move its focus to children and families’ welfare and social work has began to focus on social justice. The early child welfare practitioners were concerned with educating children about productive and religious work hence keeping them busy and saving them from destruction (Shireman, 2015). There was the rise of Child Rescue Movement in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century and the child protective societies which were private sectors and were initiated to protect children from abuse. Social work also began in the 1900s which contributed to development of an idea concerning the possibility of supporting the families and children and the idea was formulated by Children Rescue Movement. The field specialized with the goal of protecting the children. 

Functions of Social workers in the Field of Child Welfare

            Social workers in the field of child welfare are involved in carrying out investigations concerning cases of child abuse or neglects and formulate decisions of whether the children should continue living with their biological parents or in state custody in order to protect them from any kind of harm. The social workers take appropriate steps within a short time depending on the reported maltreatment, the extent of the case and what is required under the state of law. They may talk to the parents and also may talk to the children alone or in presence of the significant caregivers depending on the level of risk and the age of the child. The social workers may move an endangered child to a safe place like to relatives or foster care as investigations proceed. The main agenda during the investigation is to determine whether there was occurrence of abuse or negligence and the risk of reoccurrence of the incidence (Petr, 2004). They finally come up with two types of results; one is unsubstantiated which means the workers lacked sufficient evidence to prove that there was child abuse or negligence. The other finding is substantiated meaning that there was occurrence of child abuse or negligence case. The child welfare agency immediately begins the court action if it realizes that the juvenile court authority is essential to offer the safety of the child.

            The social workers form models which help to solve crisis, offer protection to the children enhance family bonds are maintained and strengthened, impact more knowledge to family members and enhance the utilization of the available formal and informal support and services. Intensive Family Preservation Services is an example of the models which was formed in 1990. It works under several basic theories (Petr, 2004). The first one is the family systems theory which claims that regardless of the existence of different theories of family systems, they all focus on the family and not the child alone. The focus can be on interaction and communication among the members of the family, power relationships, boundaries which are subsistence or as family functioning aspect. The other theoretical base is social learning theory which is applied to individual young ones initially. The theory focuses on the interactions of the families that reward or punish behaviors regarded to be competent. The social workers who might chose to apply this theory might closely focus on parental training where they teach the parents’ issues concerning communication and disciplinary skills which are highly effective or might also focus on teaching the teenagers and the parents about effective skills to use in negotiation. The workers mainly focus on how behaviors are learnt and helping the families to learn the new behaviors.  The other theory is the ecological theory which the social workers apply when they want to participate in helping the families to get the required n order to achieve an environment which is safe and healthy. The workers participate directly in order to help the families achieve the required resources.

Job Opportunities in Child Welfare Field

Foster Care and Adoption Caseworker

            The workers are mainly involved in training and recruiting the people who decide to adopt children. This job is very important as the issue of taking care of children who have been neglected appears quite challenging. They are also responsible for joining children with their biological families depending on the definition of the responsibilities (Ritter, 2014). New programs have been initiated to take care of the kinship families formed when relatives make a decision of adopting the children. The main prospective of this job is to ensure that the child finally gets a happy ending and that the child is placed in a home for adoption. Some of the responsibilities of the caseworkers in child health include assessment of the case and documentation, carrying out supervisory visits between the parents and the children, organizing the services that are needed by the children and the parents, carrying out examination activities on children to determine neglect and abuse, transporting the parents and the children to the needed opportunities and services, attending the proceedings of the court, collaborating with other significant professions, updating the supervisors on concerns about the progress of the case and planning the case for parents and children.

Careers in Child Welfare Research

            The workers in this job opportunity are mainly interested in carrying out research to bring better understanding of the child abuse and the appropriate ways to intervene with families and children. This ensures that there is enough evidence in the interventions used in the child abuse (Ritter, 2014). Research enables to get answers to various questions like: Why are children abused? What type of families and children are at risk of getting child abuse experiences? What are the most appropriate methods of dealing with the abusive parents? Why color children are mostly represented in the foster care system? What number of children goes through disruptions during adoption? What are the long-term impacts of the young generation who are brought up in foster care system? The social workers are mostly interested in carrying out research for universities, non-profit research organizations or the government.

            Child Welfare Advocate

            The main task of the social workers in advocacy is to offer education to the public concerning the issues of children. They are also involved in inducing passage of legislation by the legislators to the local as well as the national levels that would be of benefit to children as well as their families (Ritter, 2014). Recently, the advocates have been able to manage offering of funds to the grandparents who are raising their grandchildren, the children who emancipate from the system of child welfare and adoption subsidies for those parents who happen to adopt disabled children.

            Substitute Care Caseworker

            The caseworkers mainly work with the family when the child has been taken away from home. The case is transferred to the substitute caseworker by the Child Protective Services after they take the child away from home. The caseworkers try to offer the required resources to the families hoping that there will be rehabilitation of the family later on (Ritter, 2014). They are also responsible in searching for homes to shelter the children ensuring that medical, recreational and therapeutic needs are properly met. In case the re-unification of the family is impossible, it is the obligation of the caseworker to find a permanent home to shelter the child. The process may include placing the child with relatives who will take care of the child permanently, a person who is a friend to the family or taking a step of family rights termination and keeping the child ready for legal adoption.

Protective Child Services Investigator

            The investigator communicates to the child, parents and other people who have information concerning the family so as to carry out assessment concerning the functioning of the family (Ritter, 2014).  They also assess the risks of the child and bring out determination concerning if truly the child was neglected or abused. The investigators usually work with families enabling them to achieve the services available in the community. They may also offer eligible cases to the preservation unit of the family.

Family Preservation Caseworker

            The caseworkers in this job opportunity protect the child from being removed from home by providing the services that are needed to prevent child abuse. The services may include: home visits, parental counseling as well as children counseling, financial planning, educating the parents and treatment of substance abuse (Ritter, 2014). The Child Protective Services has an obligation to provide more prevention services and to unify the families and ensure that the state does not take over the custody of the children.

Issues and Concerns of Social Workers in Child Welfare

Communication

            Many families have been reporting that they have been undergoing through total trauma in the course of their encounters with the social workers. The experience has been leading to loss of confidence by the parents concerning their parenthood, low self-esteem among the parents and reduction of trust in all the known professions. Studies have outlined that regardless of the presence of supporters and observers; still the parental behavior representation is replicated (Great Britain & Great Britain, 2009). A number of families are suggesting that change over this issue should be considered. This is because the change important in the level of communication between the parents and the social workers as it is a part of the images being presented before the court which is used to assess if the social workers have allowed the parents to keep their children. In case any defect is noticed in the court, the parents are the ones to blame which is wrong since defect is supposed to be implicated unto both parties. Research done shown that the social workers have been to applying communication which is very confrontational. There has been forwarding of the issue of attention insufficiency to micro-skills concerning the social workers towards the parents. The micro-skills are usually involved in protecting the children and it is considered as a priority to be dealt with in future.  However, it is of no need for the social workers to improve their communication skills so long as they are going to continue working with the corrupt environment that strongly offer reward and show high level of support to dishonesty cases.

            There is an issue of insufficiency of communication skills in talking and making observations on the children.  The parents as well as the big children have been criticizing the social workers because of this incidence (Great Britain & Great Britain, 2009). This has been turning out as a great concern as the social workers are supposed to listen and collect information concerning the ideas of the children. They are also supposed to assess the parents using the expected communication skills which they totally lack. It is being suggested that in order to improve this issue, video assessment to be applied in the interactions with the consent of the clients. The assessment done is then supposed to be discussed and reported in presence of practitioner to the experts.

Intellectual Standards

            There is an issue of narrow evidence which has been in use by the social workers and has been interfering with vivid results. The evidence is also not correct due to dishonesty or reporting errors. This issue is alarming because the same errors that have been contributing towards the death of children are the same errors which related to the accusation of the parents by the social workers and the parents finally lose their children (Great Britain & Great Britain, 2009). The parents are having a strong believe that usage of narrow evidence has significantly been contributing to the negative impacts like the death of their children. They are saying that the inadequate reasoning and training to the social workers has both contributed to the cases of criticisms

Literature Review

            In the late 1900s, there was initiation of non-profit societies which took responsibilities for protecting children from cruelty. In the year, 1912 the children’s’ bureau was established after White House Conference on care of dependent children. The federal government took responsibility of child welfare in the era of the New Deal (Brittain, & Hunt, 2004). The Pediatric radiologists started dealing with the issues of child abuse in early 1946. In the year 1966, mandatory laws were passed by 49 states obligating given professionals to join in issues regarding children so as to be reporting maltreatment or abuse of the children to public departments. The recognition of this issue by the federal led to organization of a congress that passed public law, the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act.

            Social workers in the field of child health are responsible in ensuring the security of children. Sometimes they are criticized while trying to help the children. They are supposed to remove the mistreated child from the home within the shortest period possible hence they have to make immediate sound decisions. They are usually feeling that if they leave the child and then the child is killed, they will end up feeling guilty (Myers, 2006). The moment they remove the child from home they end being blamed for separating the child from the biological parents. The social workers are also involved in separating the abused and the children who are not maltreated. There are various job opportunities in the field of child health among them being social workers, police officers, juvenile court judges, attorneys, physicians, mental health worker and nurses. The professions usually put efforts to take offer the families and the children.

            The issue of poor communication has been outlined by historical studies as a concern that is highly affecting results of investigations. It has been contributing towards fewer alternative actions and has been leading to inadequate assessment of their potential implications (Zastrow, 2009). The people have been claiming that the cause of poor communication is due to insufficiency of skills in communication or because others have been withholding information in order to manipulate their colleagues. There is also a thought that conflicts among the social workers are also contributing towards poor communication. The need for a much simpler way of offering protection to children during emergencies by the social workers is also another issue. Historical studies have shown that there are risks of separating the children from their biological parents when the social workers take them from home (Masson, McGovern, Pick & Winn, 2007). The grounds in which the children are removed from their homes are not clear. There is a suggestion that the new Emergency Protection Order to provide genuine protective ways for children and that the workers be allowed to reflect much on the cases to avoid narrow evidence. It is rejecting the average period of 72 hours which is taken before the case is taken to the court and is proposing that the period be maximized to eight days in order for the social workers of the agency to have gained enough evidence.

Conclusion

            The aim of the child welfare is to promote permanency, safety and wellbeing of the children and the families. It also has a goal to ensure that the children who stay in the foster care are able to leave the child welfare system safely under the care of their biological parents, relatives or the foster home caregivers. The responsibilities of the social workers include: investigating cases of child abuse or children who have been neglected, making decisions if the children should continue living with their parents and participation in adoption process. It is also involved in organizing places safe for permanent stay for the children who will not go back to their biological homes, ensuring that there is availability of resources required by the parents and formulation of models that can enhance protection of the children. There are several job opportunities in the field of child health among them being family preservation caseworker, Protective Child Services investigator, substitute care caseworker, child welfare advocate and careers in child welfare research. Communication is an issue that parents as well as children are raising concerning the social workers recommending that there is need to improve in terms of communication skills. The parents are also raising another issue concerning narrow information being in use by the social workers while collecting information. The parents are saying that the narrow information has been readily contributing towards many negative evidences as it is usually containing numerous errors. There are suggestions that insufficient training and reasoning by the social workers has been greatly contributing to the collection of narrow information.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Reference

Brittain, C., & Hunt, D. E. (2004). Helping in child protective services: A competency-based casework          handbook. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Great Britain & Great Britain. (2009). Training of children and families social workers: Seventh report of session 2008-09. London: Stationery Office.

Masson, J. M., McGovern, D., Pick, K., & Winn, O. M. (2007). Protecting powers: Emergency intervention for children's protection. Chichester, England: J. Wiley & Sons.

Myers, J. E. B. (2006). Child protection in America: Past, present, and future. New York: Oxford University                Press.

Petr, C. G. (2004). Social work with children and their families: Pragmatic foundations. Oxford:             Oxford University Press.

Ritter, J. A. (2014). 101 careers in social work. Springer Publishing Company.

Shireman, J. F. (2015). Critical issues in child welfare. Columbia University Press. New York.

Zastrow, C. (2009). Social work with groups: A comprehensive workbook. Belmont, CA: Brooks/Cole.